An ex-trucker reminisces
Back in the Seventies and Eighties I drove a truck for my father's company. Actually I drove several trucks; everything from a homemade mobile crane (we called it a "wrecker") that Pop had made out of a '52 Reo front end and a White rear end; to a '57 Reo that went through various incarnations as either a dump truck or a tractor; to a C700 Ford straight truck; to a W9000 Ford tractor with a 6-71 Detroit and a Fuller Road Ranger 10 speed trans. I got good enough with the Detroit that I could go up through the box without using the clutch, once I got the rig rolling. What you did was to wind the diesel out until the governor cut in (about 2100 rpm); back off just enough to unload the transmission; slip the stick into neutral; let the engine rpms drop back to a point you knew from experience would let the next gear mesh without jerking (usually about 1600); slip the trans into the next higher gear (and you literally had to feel the gears engage with the stick) and accelerate again. While some could, I never got good enough to go back down through the gears without using the clutch; part of the reason being that I knew who would have to R&R the trans if I broke it!
My Dad built heavy duty truck trailers; the kind you'd haul a bulldozer or backhoe on and he sold them all over the country. One of our biggest dealers was in Woodland, CA and it would take a co-driver and I a week (it took 2 weeks for a single driver) to run out to California with a load of trailers stacked as high as the law allowed, drop the load at the dealer and bobtail home (any of you who have driven a truck tractor without the trailer attached know how much fun 3000 miles of this was!).
The route we took into California involved crossing the Mojave desert (we'd leave North Carolina and time the run so that we crossed the desert at night) and Tehachapi pass. My first trip out I believed all the warning signs about keeping my speed down coming down the pass so I pulled the transmission back down on the "low side" and very nearly burned up the brakes on the rig trying to keep the Detroit from over speeding going down the hill. Once I got to the bottom of the mountain I realized that I'd been played for a sucker, because the hill was not all that bad if you had some common sense and some experience driving. So on the second trip I left the transmission in 10th gear and rode on down the hill. Of course I was running about 20 miles an hour over the posted speed limit of 35 but the wind coming up the canyon blowing against the flat front of that cab over tractor acted like an air brake and kept my speed down without me having to touch the brakes.
When I found this on YouTube the other night, it brought back a lot of memories and I thought I'd share. This is how a 6-71 should be shifted:
My Dad built heavy duty truck trailers; the kind you'd haul a bulldozer or backhoe on and he sold them all over the country. One of our biggest dealers was in Woodland, CA and it would take a co-driver and I a week (it took 2 weeks for a single driver) to run out to California with a load of trailers stacked as high as the law allowed, drop the load at the dealer and bobtail home (any of you who have driven a truck tractor without the trailer attached know how much fun 3000 miles of this was!).
The route we took into California involved crossing the Mojave desert (we'd leave North Carolina and time the run so that we crossed the desert at night) and Tehachapi pass. My first trip out I believed all the warning signs about keeping my speed down coming down the pass so I pulled the transmission back down on the "low side" and very nearly burned up the brakes on the rig trying to keep the Detroit from over speeding going down the hill. Once I got to the bottom of the mountain I realized that I'd been played for a sucker, because the hill was not all that bad if you had some common sense and some experience driving. So on the second trip I left the transmission in 10th gear and rode on down the hill. Of course I was running about 20 miles an hour over the posted speed limit of 35 but the wind coming up the canyon blowing against the flat front of that cab over tractor acted like an air brake and kept my speed down without me having to touch the brakes.
When I found this on YouTube the other night, it brought back a lot of memories and I thought I'd share. This is how a 6-71 should be shifted:
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